A Tale of Two Jumps…

…And a tale of two Robbies. This past week, for the big new years celebration, Both Robbie Madison and “Kaptain” Robbie Kneivel made highly hyped motorcycle jumps in Las Vegas.

Robbie Madison’s jump was…insane.

Robbie Kneivel’s jump was…meh.

I think Robbie Kneivel irks me. First, he didn’t jump the volcano at the Mirage. He jumped near the volcano. And even if he had, so what. I’ve been to the Mirage. I’ve seen the volcano. It ain’t that big. Jumping it really isn’t any more impressive than what the average motocross racer does every day, and Robbie–and FOX–acted like it was just as impressive as anything Evel Kneivel ever did.

It wasn’t.

If Evel had set this deal up, he would have jumped the volcano. And he’d have done it riding a 600-pound Harley Sportster with stock suspension, not a lightweight little motocross bike with 18 inches of suspension travel.

Robbie Madison’s jump, on the other hand…well, not even Evel could’ve coaxed a Sportster up on top of a 100-foot vertical tower.

Granted, Madison used a motocross bike, too, but at least he has the excuse that it’s pretty much the only type of bike that could’ve done it.

In the video, the FOX announcer made a big deal out of the fact that kneivel doesn’t have a speedometer on his bike. But a speedometer really isn’t necessary for a jump that can be made at any speed between 40 and 80 miles per hour. At the end of the day, what Robbie Kneivel did was take a motocross bike and catch 25 feet of air from ramps on a level street, and it was hyped like the most amazing event ever.

I couldn’t do either of those jumps, myself. But then I don’t bill myself as the world’s greatest motorcycle stunt daredevil.

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